Restrictions on Campaign Contributions?

If I understand it correctly, the SEC rule relates to a potential conflict of interest. It deals specifically with contributions by investment companies (or their employees) to a political campaign where the company is acting as an investment adviser to a government entity overseen by the candidate or may do in the future. Let me give you an example:

If YSI (Yankee Sailor Investments) acts as financial adviser to the New York state pension, it would be inappropriate for the company (or employees) to contribute to the reelection of the New York State Comptroller, as the Comptroller oversees the state pension. Likewise, if YSI or employees contribute to the election of the Comptroller, then YSI wouldn't be allowed to act as adviser for the state pension for at least 2 years after the contributions.

In your friend's case, I would guess his company has a monitor to check the potential contributions, as the company's portfolio changes and they have to think of future work, too. I hope that made sense.

Additional Details:

In short no, the SEC can not regulate to who you can contribute however,

I am not sure your friend was specifically talking about approval of who to contribute to. There would reasonably be some restrictions on campaign contributions by a public company whose shareholders want a say in the political activities of that company. In the Citizen's United decision the court referenced that all the mechanisms to restrict campaign contributions were already available to the stockholder. As a result of the decision in Citizens, State and Federal legislation has been passed to increase reporting requirements and to limit the power of the board and increase shareholder influence into the nature of political contributions. These reporting requirements are an SEC function and perhaps your friend was referring to this. I have included a link to a handbook that may contain additional answers to your question on these issues.

There is no requirement to get SEC approval to contribute to a political action committee, that, according to Citizen's United would be a violation of "free speech". However the SEC does get involved with proxy issues and claims of wrong doing by a company on behalf of a complainant shareholder. I would get a clarification from your friend. The following is how the SEC would get involved:

Earlier this year, NorthStar Asset Home Management, a pension fund that owns shares in Home Depot, attempted to get a shareholder advisory vote over corporate electioneering contributions onto Home Depot’s proxy statements. Home Depot opposed the shareholder proposal and gave three reasons that the proposal should be excluded: 1) it’s substantively already in effect, 2) political spending is covered by the ordinary business rule, and 3) the proposal was vague and misleading. The SEC letter rejected all three of these grounds and recognized that political spending is a significant issue of corporate policy that Home Depot could not prevent its shareholders from seeing and voting on.

There are still financial limitations to individuals that contribute to a campaign. However there is no limit to contributions to a corporation set up as a Super PAC. Please read

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 50 (2010)

I wish there were.